Hverir is our first stop after breakfast at The Cowshed, watching cows eat and be milked. Hverir is a large geothermal field full of bubbling mud cauldrons and hissing steam vents. It is actually in the middle of a geothermal area of about 50 km width that we will spend most of the day seeing parts of.

Skutustadgigar is on the south side of Lake Myvatn and is where the pseudo craters are . Theses are depressions in the earth where hot lava flowed and heated up water in the ground do hot that the water exploded creating a hole in the ground about 40 meters wide and 20meters deep.

Kalfarstrond is an area where there are weird lava columns rising up from the ground in various shapes and arches.

Dimmuborgir, or the 'dark castles' is a large lava field formed 2200 years ago. Here one finds contorted lava pillars and walls with openings in them formed by a lava lake that eventually glowed for over 100 km. in one area about 200 meters wide you find yourself encircled by pillars that jut up about 60 meters. The contrast of the black lava, snow from last week's storm, fall's yellow birch leaves and fall red underbrush leaves was spectacular. We had lunch of soup and Geysir bread there and were told to visit the local bakery!

Namafjall is an area in the geothermal area that locals use as their bakery . Each morning many homes and businesses each place a bucket of bread dough into the ground and covered with a steel plate. Twenty four hours later it is pulled out of the hole and allowed to cool and dry from its temp. of 90 degrees to be edible as Geysir bread. It is sweet because of the molasses and grains and very filling.

Kroflustod is where the geothermal plant is that creates electricity. The plant was closed but opened for a tour of Israeli engineers, so they let us in too. We were blessed with a private tour as yhe dngineers were leaving as we arrived. The very hot water and steam from under the ground comes up through forty drill holes that go as deep as 4000 meters to drive the turbines that produce electricity. We also visited Viti, a steep walled explosion crater nearby created by the Icelandic volcano gods in 1724.

After such a long day of touring we submitted to Jardbodin. This geothermal fed pool was a pleasure to relax in, at 40 degrees. As with all these pools in Iceland, one must shower (and wash specific areas of your body as per the pictures on the wall) then put on a swim suit and go to the pool that is about 50 meters across and only four feet deep. As it is naturally fed, there are some cool areas but also some moving hot spots that involuntarily cause one to quickly stand! It was funny to see people stand up randomly and very quickly when a hot spot got to them.

Dinner at The Cowshed was a wonderful combination of pan fried Arctic char, grilled lamb chops, Gnarly Head Zinfandel, chocolate cake and americano coffee. Soooo good, we will miss this place but may yet find